


Tell the Truth

by Shirekat



Category: Princess Tutu
Genre: Adventure, Drosselmeyer returns, F/M, Happily Ever After, Horror, I promise, Supernatural - Freeform, Three tests, fairytale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-12
Updated: 2009-09-12
Packaged: 2018-05-18 00:22:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5890855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shirekat/pseuds/Shirekat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drosselmeyer returns to complete the tragedy he never got to enjoy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

A small yellow duck hopped out of the water and onto the shoulder of a dark-haired boy, who was currently staring off into the abyss.

He jumped when she did, and tried to hide a blush. It was almost sunset. They would be returning to their little cabin on the side of the lake soon.

Ahiru jumped down again, this time landing on the dock, and looked up at him expectantly.

For a moment, all Fakir could do was stare at her. She was so small and fragile, and yet somehow she was the strongest person he knew. Yes, he still thought of her as the human she had been. Sometimes he could even see Ahiru out of the corner of his eye, in something that the little duck in front of him did. Just an expression, or a movement. It was enough to make his heart stop, and make the disappointment when he realized the impossibility of it nearly unbearable, no matter how many times he told himself it had been foolish to hope in the first place.

But a promise was a promise. They needed to stay who, and what, they truly were. And, despite some feeling of injustice about the whole thing, and the way she still acted so human, and so out of place in feathers—though he supposed she would look clumsy and out of place whatever form she took—this was her. Except that… but no. It was useless. This was _her_.

A loud, rumbling chuckle startled the both of them into jumping, and Fakir reflexively rose to protect her, his eyes darting around in vain to locate the source of the sound which had suddenly seemed to come from everywhere at once. He firmly resisted the urge to scoop Ahiru into his arms protectively.

“So calm and boring a scene. But do I detect a note of unrest among the ranks?”

The boy and the duck independently blushed but quickly suppressed this reaction, each feeling guilty at their dissatisfaction with their current lives.

The voice descended into loud laughter again, and Fakir thought it sounded familiar. A glance at Ahiru’s uneasy stature confirmed Fakir’s suspicions.

“Drosselmeyer,” he growled.

The disembodied voice fell silent, then, after a moment it seemed to be on the other side of them than it had been, if indeed it had been on a side at all, and it sounded taunting.

“That’s right,” the dead storyteller replied, adding in mock generosity, “I have come to miss the failed knight and the princess who is really a duck.”

Blushes covered their faces now, and they were unable to hide them.

The feeling of a great smile only just out of sight surrounded them then, and tripled their insecurities, deepening their embarrassment to the point that they avoided each other’s eyes.

With another chuckle, this time echoing in the air in every direction, the world went misty and vague, and in the moment of deafening silence a new stage flashed into sharp reality.

At the same time, both Fakir and Ahiru twisted around with sudden terror to make sure the other was there. And at the same time, their eyes widened in shock and terror when they saw they were alone.

 

Fakir stared blankly at the scene which surrounded him. He seemed to be in some sort of castle corridor. He turned slowly around and counted four identical passageways to choose from.

But which one to take?

He turned around again and again, staring down into the darkness, lit only by intermittent torches which threw ominous shadows across the walls.

Where was she?

Where was _he_?

Suddenly a scream tumbled down one of the corridors. Fakir spun until he was facing the sound. She had never screamed like that before.

The wordless cry came again, longer and louder this time, breaking in a sob at the end, and this time there was no doubt in Fakir’s mind who it was. It was Ahiru. And she was in terrible pain.

Almost before he could think he was flying down the corridor, deeper and deeper into the seemingly-never-ending hallway.

But all too soon, he heard the scream again. He stopped dead.

It had been coming from the other direction.

He doubled back twice as fast. The echo must have thrown the sound down this corridor, when it really came from the opposite direction. He had just passed the intersection when it came again, just as blood-curdling as ever.

But this time, it came from one of the side halls.

Fakir was slow to back up this time, and for a moment stared in the direction the last scream came from.

Sure enough, a moment later it came from the opposite direction.

Fakir circled again, trying desperately to find which way to go.

If only there were some way he could tell which scream was real.

As if on cue, another cry rose up, and he stared down the hall from whence it came.

Almost before he could identify it, another came, from one of the other corridors. And another. And another.

The screaming came faster and faster and louder and louder, driving him insane with the need to help Ahiru, and his writer’s imagination running away with the situation and forming terrible ideas as to what was happening to her.

Then the screaming came from more than one direction at once, and soon all four hallways were consumed with the sound.

Fakir’s breathing was shallow and uneven, his ears straining through the noise, desperately seeking a defining difference in the screams.

But though they were all unique, none of them sounded more like Ahiru than another, and all were equally horrifying.

With a cry of his own, Fakir threw himself down what he thought was the first corridor, though in truth he had lost all sense of direction.

The screaming followed him, _all_ of it, and it got no easier to bear. His teeth ground and sweat beaded his forehead, but all he could do was keep running and hope it was the right way.

 

Ahiru felt dizzy when she opened her eyes, not realizing that she had closed them in the first place.

She found herself sitting on a cold, stone floor.

No, not stone, she realized, looking down. Glass. A mirror.

Her hands slid over the surface to steady herself. Wait… her… _hands_? Her breath escaped her and her heart skipped a beat when she saw her human reflection. Had Fakir…?

No. She remembered the world turning misty and finally falling away, looking around, not seeing Fakir, becoming dizzy, and falling, her legs giving way beneath her.

Her limbs still felt wobbly, and she leaned on her arms to support her, finally raising her head, only to cringe away, standing in her attempt to turn around.

The walls were mirrors as well. It seemed like a hundred panels to cover the large room, and in each one was a different reflection.

And every one of the panels had a doorknob on it.

There she was with Fakir. He was holding her as a duck. She twisted around and Pike and Lilie stroked her feathers and gushed over how cute she was as a duck.

But next to them she wore a familiar white and pink tutu, and Prince Mytho held her hands and bent to kiss her.

She yelped and turned away from that picture before he could reach her lips.

And there she was again, chatting and laughing with Rue, who looked happier than Ahiru ever remembered seeing her. They were both wearing academy uniforms.

Beside them Pike and Lilie hung on her human arms, giggling and poking at her.

She stood alone in the next mirror. As a duck. Her features looked to her long-suffering, but a moment later another yellow duck waddled over, followed by a menagerie of smaller ducks. She screamed and fell backwards in her attempt to escape that. She tore her eyes away and to the next panel—the next door. She stood alone there, too, at first. Except she smiled and waved back at herself, back in her school uniform again. She seemed cheerful enough.

And then Mytho and Rue joined her, both in uniforms and holding hands, chatting with her cheerfully. But that couldn’t be real. They were gone.

She turned away from that again, and looked into Mytho’s eyes. He had his arm around her waist, and they both wore uniforms.

A whimper escaped her lips.

And there she was with Fakir. En Pointe as Princess Tutu, and he bent as a knight to kiss her hand. Her eyes flickered away, to a truly solitary portrait. Princess Tutu smiled benevolently and held out a hand, so genuine that Ahiru almost reached for it.

Then she caught sight of yellow feathers again. She was held by Rue, fast asleep, and Mytho smiled down at her as well.

In another panel, she and Kraehe faced each other, Kraehe glaring daggers into her reflection.

But beside that, Fakir, his eyes softened, held her human chin, and bent to kiss her. Just her, as Ahiru.

Her heart nearly broke as she watched that pantomime, not able to tear her eyes away before he reached her lips, and she threw her arms around his neck.

No. No!

There was Rue again, alone this time, though she wore the garb of a princess, holding a little duck in the crook of an arm as she walked towards some unknown goal.

Without thinking, Ahiru darted forward and grabbed for the doorknob.

As soon as she touched it, her reflection and Rue’s fell down dead to the floor, blood spilling from their hearts.

Ahiru screamed in horror and snatched her hand back, staring between the offending hand and the macabre reflection in overwhelming terror as tears blurred her vision and fell from her cheeks.

Suddenly all the other reflections spoke at once to her, all turning their heads. There were choruses of her own voice, and others, too. Everyone she had ever known, human or not.

“You must choose the reflection that is where you truly belong,” they said, and she spun around, suddenly conscious that she was naked again, as if they could all see her.

Her eyes searched low, and found her Duck family. She moved toward them, but an image burned in the back of her eyes, and she looked around until she found it again.

Fakir held her as a duck. Walking home, probably, before all the images had turned to face her.

Yes. That was the one.

She braced herself and strode forward, holding out her hand. In one movement she took a firm grip on the handle.

But then they were dead.

She was dead again, lying on Fakir’s chest, her feathery cheek stained dark with his life-blood, and his body was twisted at an unnatural angle.

“No!” she screamed, the tears on her cheeks multiplying and a sob escaping her lips.

“That’s it,” she managed, “That’s where I have to be. It can’t be! It can’t be!”

“Choose again,” came the chorus of voices, though it seemed like they were tinted with dread, now, and Ahiru felt wretched, like she had murdered them.

“But I don’t _know_!” she sobbed out, hardly expecting an answer.

“Choose what’s in your heart,” they all replied, startling her.

_My heart_.

She looked around the room once.

_My_ heart.

She turned around the other way and moaned.

They couldn’t mean that. Her eyes locked with Fakir’s, in the picture where he held her waist protectively, lovingly. That was where her heart was.

But that wasn’t where she belonged.

She closed her eyes and stepped forward, not knowing what else she could do. She groped for the handle and twisted it, falling blindly across the threshold. As the door slammed shut behind her she lay sobbing on the ground.

There was a mistake, or it was a trick. Any one of the doors might have worked if she could have withstood watching everyone she had ever loved die. It couldn’t be right. It just couldn’t.


	2. Chapter 2

Fakir was breathing hard, tears running down his face, not knowing when the constant scream had turned to sobbing and hardly watching where he was going.

He almost ran into the thick wooden door which blocked his path, and even so, when he saw that it had no handle he fell against it and pounded, sobbing himself.

“Ahiru!” he yelled hoarsely, banging his fist on the door, “ _Ahiru_!”

He slid down to the ground, his breath coming shallow and his heart breaking.

“Fakir.”

The voice was soft and light, even motherly, and he had heard it before.

He looked up in surprise.

It was Edel, the puppet who had burned herself to keep him warm.

She smiled down at him.

“Where is Ahiru?” he pleaded, “I need to know. How can I find her?”

His voice was shaken and cracked, but Edel seemed to understand him, for she nodded.

“Are you sure you want to find her?”

“Yes!”

“Do you really love her that much?”

“ _Yes_!”

For a moment Edel was silent. Then, “Very well. Before you can find Ahiru you must pass three tests. The first is just beyond this door. Good luck, and may you always live with this much human passion.” The last she said with what seemed to be regret as she gestured to the wood which he leaned against. Suddenly, it swung open with a creak, and Fakir let himself fall to the ground in the doorway.

Looking up, all he saw was darkness. Tests? What had Edel meant? There was nothing here. Only darkness. Slowly he stood, despair creeping through him, and still nothing appeared until he stood straight again and took one step forward.

Only then was the chamber illuminated, and a pedestal stood before him, with a bowl of crystalline water in it, swishing around as if someone had just put it down.

Cautiously, Fakir moved towards it.

“That’s right,” Drosselmeyer’s voice was everywhere again, “Look into the water.”

Fakir hesitated for a moment before looking.

It showed the two of them, Fakir and Ahiru, as they had been just before they had been swept up into this nightmare.

But Fakir had given up on the hope that that was all it was. It was too real, his muscles were too tired from all the running for it to have been a dream.

“You see,” Drosselmeyer narrated as that image faded, “I was rather surprised that you had kept your promise to her.”

“I will _always_ stay with her,” Fakir snarled, gripping the sides of the pedestal.

“Oh, no doubt of that,” came the voice with a chuckle, “I meant keeping her as a duck. I’m deeply interested in why. Why do you torture yourself with watching her every day and knowing you can never have her?”

Fakir could feel himself start to blush as scenes passed through the water, from the lake of despair, and their first months together, and finally back to the last image, when he managed to choke out through a steady stream of tears, “Because it’s who she truly is, whether or not I love her.”

“Hmm… is that all?”

Fakir started as the image of himself scribbling frantically at his desk churned to the surface of the water and he almost choked.

The chuckle came again, “Yes, didn’t you try, once? To turn her human again?”

“I destroyed that story. It never had time to work, even if it would have.”

“Now where was the chivalry in that?” The image flickered as the flames he had built turned that forbidden story to ash

“Didn’t you ever permit yourself to hope, Fakir?” The voice was right in his ear, now, “Do you _ever_ have a dream without her human form in a starring role?”

Now his dreams were being played back for him. All of them. The good and the bad. Her leaving him and her holding tight to him and never letting go. Even, once, her screaming his name in ecstasy and twining her fingers through his hair.

“Stop it!” Fakir yelled, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away.

“She’s human, you know.” The image faded into a typical nightly scene, except for her form. She slept fitfully by his side, flickering between feathers and a pained expression on a very human face. She seemed like she was in terrible agony, and yet he slept peacefully beside her.

“What?” Fakir whispered in disbelief.

“I stole her much as I stole Kraehe. If you love her so much you must have known that she couldn’t have been a duck. She was still much too human.” The water flitted through scenes as he described them. Her young, toothless smile, and her parents’ despair when she was gone. And then the way she moved, and the way she watched him when she was a duck.

He was sobbing again, gasping for air which burned his lungs.

“ _You_ are the one keeping her from returning to her true form. Let her go, Fakir. You can only do more harm to her.”

Fakir was shaking, his knuckles turning white upon the pedestal in his efforts to remain in control of himself.

“That’s not true!” he shouted, but even as he protested, he began to doubt.

“Oh, isn’t it?” Drosselmeyer, in the moment Fakir had looked away, had materialized on the other side of the pedestal, a sickly grin on his face.

“Do you love her enough to let her go, if you find her and she doesn’t want you? Will you still seek her, and try to save her?”

“I have to,” he choked out, “Don’t you see I _have_ to?! Even if I _can’t_ help her, I _have to try_!”

“You are willing to die for her, then?”

“I _love_ her!” he snarled, “Of course I’d die for her!”

As soon as the words had left his lips the pedestal melted into a larger pool of water on the stone floor, which in turn melted through the stone and created a swirling pit with mist rising from it, and a deafening wind whipped around him.

“Prove it,” Drosselmeyer challenged him, grinning and pointing to the pit before stepping back and disappearing bit by bit into the shadows

The wind blew fitfully, and Fakir looked into the darkness where he had last seen the disembodied smile of his ancestor.

But soon enough he stood and stepped to the edge of the pit, jumping high above the floor and bracing himself as he was taken up by the insubstantial mist and floated down.

 

Ahiru forced herself to look up, and found that she had fallen at the bottom of a wide, stone, spiraling staircase

“Ahiru!” the voice that echoed down the stairs brought her to her feet in an instant.

“Fakir!” she called back as loudly as she could.

All that came back were her echoes.

But she _had_ heard him, and his was the one voice she would follow to the end of the earth.

Stumbling, she started up the stairs, hoping every time she turned, that Fakir would be just around the bend.

She clung to this hope even as she began to wonder whether that staircase would ever end, and redoubled her efforts.

Finally, she was stopped abruptly by a thick wooden door, inlaid with metal designs.

She grasped the metal handle and pulled, tugging with all her might. This had to be what she was looking for.

She almost tumbled back down the stairs, but she threw herself into the room, surprised when she landed on a large rug, saving her from the bruises she had been sure she would get when she fell, especially naked as she still was.

Her eyes were wide and searching when she looked up, not particularly caring about her lack of clothing as long as she had found Fakir.

But there was no one in the circular room. It would have been right above the mirrors in any logical universe. This room, however, was surrounded by windows, and as she turned around she realized that even the door had disappeared.

She moved toward the window in front of her, where the door should have been, staring at the swirling mists below, and sat on the velvet window-seat which wrapped around the room. The velvet was dark red, almost like blood, and she shivered in remembrance of the violent images of the mirrored hall.

And then she caught sight of him, still floating, in the mists below.

“Fakir!” she called again, knocking, and then banging against the glass with her fists, but he didn’t look up.

She curled her legs under her and watched, her hands still pressed up against the window.

 

Fakir could see nothing but more of the swirling mists he had jumped into.

But suddenly it felt like he was standing on solid ground, and a weight on his hip surprised him.

A sword had appeared there, which he drew.

It seemed like that was the cue for the first ravens to appear. He defeated these easily enough.

But one after another they kept coming. All from the same direction, too, so Fakir started pushing back. If it would help Ahiru, then he didn’t care if it cost him his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also on [Deviantart](http://shirekat.deviantart.com/art/Tell-the-Truth-Part-2-136801492).
> 
> And [Tumblr](http://hobbithobbies.tumblr.com/post/138579268875/blasts-from-the-past-the-princess-tutu-dump).
> 
> And [FF.net](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11768735/1/Tell-the-Truth).


	3. Chapter 3

Ahiru watched as the ravens kept coming at him and she screamed at every swing of his sword.

“Fakir!” she called over and over until her voice was hoarse, but he never seemed to hear her.

“It’s no use, little duck…” Drosselmeyer’s voice came from behind her, and she turned around to have a blanket thrown in her face, made of the same material as the cushions she sat on.

She wrapped it around herself and faced Drosselmeyer.

“Why can’t he hear me?” she asked, scared and confused, but not quite angry.

“He can’t hear you because he doesn’t want to. He is fighting for his life. You don’t matter anymore.”

“That can’t be true…” she protested weakly. It made sense, though… Why would anyone want to spend their life taking care of a duck…? But… it felt all wrong. It felt like maybe… just maybe… he loved her, too.

It was just in the way he held her, and spoke to her, and _cared_ for her, but it was enough and she took courage in it.

“It’s not true!” she shouted.

“Really?” Drosselmeyer queried, raising an eyebrow, “Are you willing to stake your life on it?”

“What?” Ahiru grew frightened when the man who had haunted her ever since she could remember chuckled and pointed at the window again.

Ahiru turned her head and caught sight of the fight again. But this time it looked like Fakir was… losing. More and more ravens were closing in on him, and he couldn’t fight them all at once.

“No!” she cried, “Herr Drosselmeyer, please stop this!”

“If you truly love him,” he accused, turning his pointing hand towards her, “Then save him with your own life. Dance to give him strength, until your life has been poured out of you.”

With that the dead man was gone, and it took Ahiru only one moment more of watching to make her decision. Her toes pointed and she began to dance, the blanket falling off of her.

“Fakir,” she whispered to no one, “Take what life is within me, if it will keep you alive.”

 

Fakir knew that he was dying. He’d felt it before, and only magic had saved him, then.

But just as he almost fell to the crows, he felt a surge of strength from somewhere, and it warmed his heart. And it gave him direction. He finally saw, out of the mist, his destination. A door, which shouldn’t have led anywhere, but he knew it must. And it would bring him to the last test.

Ahiru had danced over to the windows to better watch Fakir’s progress, and gritted her teeth. Nothing in the world had ever hurt more. Even crows’ beaks pecking at her from every side. This was worse. This was internal. It felt like something was eating her from the inside out.

The release when Fakir fell through the door in the mist and disappeared left her legs to collapse under her.

She fell onto the cushions and gasped for air.

But there was still the gnawing in her chest, which restricted her breathing and made her weaker and weaker.

She could only stare out the window, now, as the mist fell away to reveal Kinkan town.

Mild interest was all she could muster up, though, as her vision tumbled down into the streets and flew past others to the cabin on the edge of the lake, the same one which Fakir had restored from dilapidation and made into a home for the two of them.

But it was different. It looked somehow newer, and as her field of vision entered at the doorway the furnishings were all different.

There was a young couple standing in the middle of the room. The woman held a blanket-wrapped baby, and the man held the woman.

“You can’t have her!” the man snarled at someone across the room, and Ahiru managed to flick her eyes far enough to catch sight of who it was.

But that glimpse was enough to frighten her into curling up in fear and shivering. It was Drosselmeyer.

 _Was this Rue’s family?_ she wondered weakly, before a spasm of pain left her exhausted again and she lay her head back down, fighting to keep her eyes open even to watch.

“We made a deal,” the old man said, “You know as well as I that your wife and the child would _both_ be dead were it not for me. Now give me the child!”

This time he grabbed the bundle from the mother’s arms, and both started sobbing at the loss of contact.

But the blankets had been jostled and the babe’s face was exposed, and Ahiru’s eyes widened in involuntary shock when she saw the face. Her own, looking back at her from younger eyes, but unmistakable, and very human.

She understood now. She _had_ been human. A clumsy one, and feathers did not help that, but she was real. It was why she couldn’t let go of her human time. Why it caused her so much pain to see the way Fakir looked at her. He seemed so sad, and every time she saw him she wished she had arms to throw around him like her mirror image had.

But it didn’t matter now, because she was too weak to move, much less throw her arms around Fakir. He was probably climbing the staircase to find her now. He couldn’t have just left her. No.

But he would be too late… No! She mustn’t think like that. Even if it was just to say goodbye, she would stay alive for that.

A minute at a time.

 

Fakir blushed.

There was nothing else, really to do, when faced with the vision he saw before him.

A row of Ahirus were lined up in front of him, each doing something slightly different, and each wearing something different, though a few of them wore nothing at all.

“Which of us is the true Ahiru?” they all asked in chorus, striking slightly different poses.

His eyes raked down the aisle of them, but he couldn’t tell any apart, much less pick one out.

And yet… _all_ of them seemed… wrong, somehow.

They all looked like Ahiru, but none of them acted toward _him_ the way she would. At least, not the way he thought she would, after all that they had been through, together.

“None of you…” he murmured almost before the thought had crossed his mind, but evidently they had heard him, for every single one of them adopted the same pose and cocked their heads at him in horror.

For a moment he thought that he had been wrong, but then they all disappeared, revealing a staircase behind them, up which he ran, feeling just as strong as when he had entered this topsy-turvy world.

The thought that Ahiru _must_ be at the top of the staircase kept him going, and he urged himself faster and faster, wrenching the door open when he came to it, and stopping dead.

Across the room, Ahiru lay on the window seat, only her eyes moving, and they were dazedly watching scenes tumbling in and out of vision outside the windows.

Her body was limp and frail-looking.

 

Ahiru heard the crash of the door as it swung open and immediately shut again, sealing them in the impossible place, and forced herself to turn her head.

 

Her mouth moved, and it looked like she was trying to produce sound, but her lungs weren’t holding enough air to push over her vocal cords.

He rushed to her side, for once not remembering to blush at her naked body. He just gathered her up into his arms, meeting with no resistance.

It seemed like all the life had left her body, except for a thread she still clung to.

 

 _Fakir_ , she tried desperately to make herself heard, but nothing was coming out of her mouth. Her lips could barely form the words.

 _But I_ have _to say this_ , she thought tiredly.

With all of her might, she swallowed the pain and took as deep a breath as she could.

“I love you.”

It came out as barely a breath of air, but she cracked her eyes open enough to make sure that he had understood.

He had tears in his eyes and was holding her closer than she had thought, his face mere inches away.

 

It was strange, how natural the words seemed to be after he had spent so long denying them, and she had spent so long forbidden to say them.

He smiled at her, hoping she could see, but his face fell as her neck fell slack and her eyes closed.

“No,” he whispered as she exhaled. He could barely see the rise and fall of her bare chest anymore, and he didn’t know how long even that hold on life would last her.

“No!” he cried, holding her even closer and not caring that tears ran down his face into her hair, “No, Ahiru! I love you!”

He was yelling to nobody and nothing, and he didn’t care. He felt so helpless. He couldn’t do anything for her, and he didn’t even know what it was that was taking her from him.

All he could do was hold her tightly and stroke her hair, though she was obviously unconscious and barely alive.

And yet the villain had the gall to laugh.

Fakir tucked her head under his chin and snarled.

This sent the old man into a roar of laughter.

“Finally my tragedy is complete,” Drosselmeyer said, staring at the two of them.

“Both parties have proved their love, and one of them dies for it, the other too late to save them.”

“What did you do to her?” he growled, more animal than man in his voice.

“She gave her life to save you,” he replied calmly, “When you were succumbing to the ravens she danced to give you strength. Her life force is still dwindling.

“In fact,” he chuckled again, “It looks like your little duck’s time is almost up. All you can do now is watch her die.”

“No!” His eyes flew back to her face, and her eyelashes flickered once before her shallow breathing stopped completely.

“ _No_!” He brought her face up to his and kissed her eyelids, crying.

“I love you,” he whispered, hovering over her lips, before he kissed her, for the first and last time.

For a moment, she was unresponsive. _Dead,_ he thought in despair. But then she opened her lips a little, and Fakir pulled back to stare in surprise.

Her eyes fluttered open and her lips curled in a beaming smile.

“Fakir…”

“What?! _No_!” Drosselmeyer yelled at the two and sent the same tumultuous wind that had whirled around the setting of Fakir’s first test, but this time he didn’t care.

Life was flooding back into her now, and she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him again.

They heard another cry of defeat as they kissed again, but neither cared when that world went misty and the familiar sounds of the forest returned.

 

When they separated for a moment, they found themselves on the dock, just where they had been, but gone was the little yellow duck, and in her place a human girl.

Fakir found the decency to blush, but did not let her go.

When darkness fell, he carried her to their cottage, and they told their stories, still cuddled together, wrapped in the quilts Raetsel had made for them, and that night, they fell asleep together, Ahiru pressed up against Fakir, and his arm wrapped around her waist.

And that is how they lived. Despite everything, and all Drosselmeyer’s attempts at tragedy, happily ever after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also on [Deviantart](http://shirekat.deviantart.com/art/Tell-the-Truth-Part-3-136802123).
> 
> And [Tumblr](http://hobbithobbies.tumblr.com/post/138579268875/blasts-from-the-past-the-princess-tutu-dump).
> 
> And [FF.net](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11768735/1/Tell-the-Truth).

**Author's Note:**

> Also on [Deviantart](http://shirekat.deviantart.com/art/Tell-the-Truth-Part-1-136800676).
> 
> And [Tumblr](http://hobbithobbies.tumblr.com/post/138579268875/blasts-from-the-past-the-princess-tutu-dump).
> 
> And [FF.net](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11768735/1/Tell-the-Truth).


End file.
